A similar screening scheme in Italy has reduced deaths by 90 per cent in just a decade and early statistics suggest the current programme for athletes in Scotland is also saving lives.

The calls come a week after Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch and suffered a cardiac arrest, and two weeks after an amateur football star in Dundee died during a game.

We are in a horrendous situation at the moment and I won’t stop campaigning until this testing becomes boringly routine

Gordon Murch

On Wednesday tributes were also paid to a 13-year-old Renfrewshire girl who had a heart attack and died in the bath.

Teachers Hazel and Gordon Murch became campaigners for change after their 21-year-old son, Andrew, died in his sleep.

Earlier this year, they contacted the Government-funded Cardiac Assessment in Young Athletes team at Hampden inviting them to screen pupils at their school, Breadalbane Academy, in Perthshire.

Now the couple want to see a screening programme rolled out across Scotland.

Mr Murch said: “We are in a horrendous situation at the moment and I won’t stop campaigning until this testing becomes boringly routine.

“I know there are costs involved in doing this but the upset for families who suddenly realise their child is gone is a far greater price to pay.”

Morag Grant, whose daughter fought for a decade to have a school screening programme in place before her own untimely death at the age of 35, said the time to act had come.

In the late Nineties, Mrs Lewis launched a campaign to force schools into testing children and by 1999 she had convinced West Lothian Council to pilot a £147,000 programme for 4,500 pupils.

Her mother told the Sunday Express yesterday: “We have talked enough. It is now time for politicians to actually do something practical and introduce the screening. It will save lives.

“We have seen too many sudden deaths and they will continue at the rate of four to eight per week. That is a lot of heartache. Pupils are being screened for TB in secondary school and I think that would a good time to routinely screen children for heart conditions. A five-minute ECG scan is all it takes.”

More than 600 young people under the age of 35 in Britain die of Sudden Death Syndrome every year, while in Scotland it affects around one in 500 people.

Although some may display symptoms, they are often ignored or mistaken for other ailments such as asthma.

Doctors say it is more common in fit people because they put more stress on their hearts, and young men are 10 times more vulnerable than women.

There is no cure, but those diagnosed with it can protect their hearts.

In 2000, the then Scottish Executive ruled that the consequences of mandatory ECG tests outweight the benefits.

After Fabrice Muamba’s heart stopped, last weekend, the Tottenham players requested heart tests, while Andy Murray called on tennis players to be checked.

However, parents who have lost children to heart problems insist screening for problems should not just be restricted to sport.

They point to the tragic case of 13-year-old Caitlin Gray, who had a cardiac arrest in the bath. She had shown no previous signs of ill-health.

Wilma Gunn, whose son, Cameron, died at the age of 19 while playing football near his home in Selkirk, said: “If we save just one live it is worth it because you can’t put a price on a child’s life.”

Mrs Gunn, the founder of the charity Scottish Heart at Risk Testing (HART), is considering a public petition at Holyrood for a school testing programme.

She added: “We are concentrating on budding athletes now and I think the next step is to include screening for families who have experienced this kind of death as they are likely to be more at risk. Eventually, I would like to see it cover everyone.”

The Government-funded Cardiac Assessment in Young Athletes programme was announced following a campaign by the Sunday Express, and came just months after the death of Motherwell footballer Phil O’Donnell, who collapsed on the pitch in 2007.

At the time, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said that opinion about the effectiveness of screening was “mixed” but insisted there was a “real need to develop an evidence base”.

The £100,000 pilot scheme to test young athletes aged 16 and over was extended in 2010 for another two years though it is not known if it will continue. More than 1000 people have been tested.

Next month, a conference in Edinburgh during the Science Festival will debate the best way to reduce the death toll from heart defects. But many experts do not believe mandatory screening is the answer, pointing to the cost.

Sarah Dennis, information manager at the Cardiomyopathy Association, said: “It is a very difficult issue and even if we did screen everyone there would still be people dying. Screening doesn’t necessarily even pick up problems. Look at Fabrice Muamba. Apparently he was screened for heart defects four times and nothing was ever picked up.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Scotland’s screening programme is already more comprehensive that those running in the US and Italy.

“Evidence shows that targeted screening programmes are the most effective, but we are always happy to consider suggestions for improvement.”